Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games, believes that in 10 years the graphics of video games will be so photorealistic that they will become indistinguishable from reality. Speaking at the Develop conference (via Gamesindustry International), the programmer discussed his predictions for the future of graphics, saying that he expects games to be "absolutely photo-realistic within the next 10 years ... An indistinguishable from reality level of graphics."
Sweeney pointed out that, even though he expects graphics to improve to such a degree that they will mimic reality, developers will still have lots of work to do to truly create a living, breathing world within a video game:
"That just moves the challenge of graphics to the problems we don't know how to solve. Like simulating human intelligence, animation, speech, lip-syncing. There are still a lot areas that will require ongoing research for probably the rest of our lives before we come close to approaching reality."
The founder of the studio that has built the Unreal Engine 4 also discussed the future of the company, and how the new engine will help the company grow. He believes that the Unreal Engine 4 will help ease the development of games for multiple systems around the world:
"It means that now, increasingly, we can think about building one game and shipping it on every platform that's appropriate...It means we can potentially reach a much larger audience, and it will be increasingly important worldwide. Consoles are specific to the Western markets - North America, Europe - but they really don't exist in Korea, China... I really think we can build one game that goes to all of those markets by supporting the appropriate platforms."
It will be interesting to see if this prediction comes true, or if graphics will be unable to fulfill the challenge laid out by Sweeney.
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